a photograph by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Tag Archives: spring
Hiding Places
a love poem by Thomas Davis
I have hidden my face.
The green grass has grown wild about my house,
And the hiding places of the heart
Have multiplied and become numerous.
Spring croaks and thrashes at the wind.
The stars grow plump like yellow pears,
And the trees stand up, straight and proud,
From the soils of the earth.
I chant the words of love
And let my tongue grow dry with history.
I sing out the beauty of the sky
And tell the clouds to be silent
And to cease their rumbling.
Summer is the promise of the sun.
Conflict is the garment of drama.
O woman, you are the wind
And the sound of the wind.
O woman, you are the spirit of the stars.
I have hidden my face.
The green grass has grown wild about my house.
The hiding places of the heart
Have multiplied and become numerous.
O woman, on slippery ground
I will catch you and hold you in my arms.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
Spring
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
The perfumed night
comes like a thief.
There is hardly time
to turn
to see his face,
and like some
ancient shaman
he sends my head spinning
into a sweet,
magnetic spell.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
Weather Upside Down, a photo essay
Snow came to Continental Divide yesterday and last night. Sometimes it was so thick you could not see the Zuni Mountains out the back window.
Ethel Mortenson Davis’s photograph of flowers blooming as snow fell
Up north in Wisconsin, where Sonja Bingen lives, spring is bursting with intensity.
Sonja Bingen’s photographs
Is the north becoming the south?
Filed under Art, Essays, Photography
The Tree, Desert, Iris, and Progress
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
The Tree
Everything depends
on the apricot tree in bloom
across my neighbors fence—
A tree of butterflies!
Desert
The cornflowers are gaining
and soon will be in bloom.
Where are the rain-showers
of spring?
Iris
Cold nights
catch us off guard.
Will the iris
lose its life again?
Progress
Progress
is the budding branch,
the Painted Ladies
warming their wings
on my garden wall.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
Old Woman
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
i the old woman,
with breath on my hand,
have come before–
down this hill with stoney sides–
have come
with
the spears of grass
against my legs–
and then the sea
and its green smells
after the rain–
until this garden.
i have come
thinking
the flowers to be richer
in the coming spring,
reaching out for their smell
with only my finger tips,
sitting awhile,
and waiting.
i the old woman
have passed
the sea
many times,
not looking
at the whale
of the waves,
thinking i have
time,
tomorrow.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
Zuni
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
There is a place
on the high desert
where the sky
kneels down
and talks (with the people),
and where the blue mountains
pull them up to its heart—
where each one
has a place,
and no one
is left behind,
a place of little water,
where each cup
is drunk with gratitude—
and where children
on the school bus
stand and applaud
when the ditches
are running with water,
or when the mountain is white
in the morning
from last night’s
surprise spring snow.
Note: The Zuni people are a Pueblo Nation living in western New Mexico. This poem came from a story told by John Carter North at the Inscription Rock Trading Post poetry group meetings on Sunday morning.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
fourwindowspress 